The Authority And The Authorship Of Scripture

by C.A. Campbell

Since the Church teaches that Holy Scripture has God for its author, it is nothing strange if writers on the difficult question of Biblical inspiration should hope for light in a knowledge of the exact nature of this Divine authorship. Hence it is usual for them to inquire whether God is to be considered as author of the Bible in the ordinarily accepted sense of the word when used in reference to a book, that is, literary author; and as often as they feel justified in giving an affirmative answer to their query C which is commonly enough the case — they hasten to draw certain obvious conclusions which seem to narrow down considerably the debatable territory surrounding the question of God's relationship with His inspired word.

This view of the Divine authorship furnishes so much that is definite and, I think I may add, at first sight, comparatively easy to understand, that the professor who feels himself called upon to provide his hearers with some manageable theory of inspiration, is exposed to the temptation of accepting it, without due inquiry into all the issues its acceptance raises; and the young students whose reading of Scripture, in many instances, has not gone beyond the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays of the year, take for granted that, furnished with this theory, they are prepared to meet all the difficulties touching Biblical inspiration that await them beyond the college walls.

Of course it is no objection to a theory that it is lucid; but in subject matter so profound as to include Divine activity, it may be cause for suspicion that our study has not been complete. And it seems to me that those who assume that God is literary author of Scripture, rarely define, except in a vague and partial way, the nature of the work attributable to the human agents, contenting themselves with calling them "secondary causes," "human instruments," "instrumental causes" — terms to which each controversialist will give a special shade of meaning according to the theory he defends.

My purpose in the present article is to submit some reasons why I think that, by whatever specific term we are to describe the Divine authorship of the Sacred Scriptures, this at any rate we must admit, namely, that the inspired writers are their literary authors, in the full and proper sense of the word. I shall not undertake to decide whether it be in its nature impossible that God and man both should be true literary authors of the same work, but shall limit myself to an attempt to show that, as a matter of fact, God is not author of Scripture in the ordinary meaning of the word.

I cannot define more clearly what I mean by literary author than by saying that he is literary author of a work who gives to it its literary style. Others may prompt the writing of a book, may furnish documents bearing on its theme, and suggest ideas of their own; but the one in whose words the finished work appears is its literary author, or, what amounts to the same thing, simply its author, according to the ordinary usage of speech.

Teaching Of The Church

Two sources of knowledge are open to us in this investigation, viz., the teaching of the Church, and the study of the inspired books themselves. The following extracts embody the substance at least of all the Church teaches concerning the Divine authorship.

Statute of the IV Council of Carthage (404) to be observed in the consecration of a bishop:

Quaerendum est ab eo si Novi et Veteris Testamenti, id est, Legis et Prophetarum, et Apostolorum unum eumdemque credat auctorem esse Deum.

From the profession of Faith sent (1054) by Leo IX to Peter of Antioch:

Credo etiam Novi et Veteris Testamenti, Legis et Prophetarum, et Apostolorum unum esse auctorem Deum, et Dominum Omnipotentem.

These identical words, except that Credo is changed to Credimus, are found in the Symbol to which the Greeks subscribed in the second Council of Lyons (1274).

From the Decree pro Jacobitis, issued by the Council of Florence (1438):

Sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia . . . unum atque eumdem Deum Veteris, et Novi Testamenti, hoc est Legis, et Prophetarum, atque Evangelii profitetur auctorem, quoniam eodem Spiritu Sancto inspirante, utriusque Testamenti Sancti locuti sunt, quorum libros suscipit, et veneratur.

From the Council of Trent:

[Tridentina Synodus] Orthodoxorum Patrum exempla secuta, omnes libros tam Veteris, quam Novi Testamenti, cum utriusque unus Deus sit auctor, . . . pari pietatis affectu, ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur.

From the Dogmatic Constitution of the Vatican Council, Cap. II. de Rev.:

Eos vero [libros] Ecclesia pro sacris et canonicis habet, non ideo, quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sint approbati; nec ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant; sed propterea, quod Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti Deum habent auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi Ecclesiae traditi sunt.

I cannot see in these expressions of Catholic belief any real evidence, either direct or implied, that the authorship predicated of God is literary authorship. The test prescribed by the Council of Carthage was avowedly established as a protection against Manichaeism, which taught that the Old Testament was the work of the evil principle. The profession of faith required of the Patriarch of Antioch was not, of course, framed with the special purpose, which prompted the Carthaginian Statute; yet it contains nothing to warrant us in giving a new, or even additional, meaning to the "Deum Auctorem." And I would add — though it matters very little in the present discussion whether my suspicion is well founded or not — that I cannot read those resounding words, Dominum Omnipotentem, coming at the end of a formula that would seem complete without them, and sufficiently expressive of the faith of those whose conception of God was orthodox, without feeling that a suspicion of lurking Gnosticism, in some one of its multiple forms, prompted their insertion. Indeed, even the Florentine decree pro Jacobitis, while by its introduction of inspiration it adds an important element to its use of "author," would seem to have for special object an insistence on the unity of Divine authorship for both Testaments. It tells us that, "one and the same God" is author of both, "because the holy men of both Testaments spoke under the inspiration of the same Holy Ghost." Perrone points out, on the authority of Bianchini and Cardinal Thomasius, that Eugene IV, in the decree pro Jacobitis, borrowed his form of speech respecting the authorship of Scripture from the Roman Pontifical, in the consecration of a bishop, and adds that the profession made on this point by the Bishop-Elect was directed against Manichseism.¹ Whether or not these considerations will have much weight in a study of the Florentine decree, they at least strengthen the ground of my surmise with regard to the Dominum Omnipotentem of Leo IX, seeing that his words are identical with those of the interrogatory in the Pontifical.²

Nor does it appear that the Council of Trent itself, though questions more pressing than the early heresies of the Orient occupied its mind, changed the drift of the Church's previous language respecting the authorship of Scripture. "Following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, [the Council] receives and venerates with an equal feeling of piety and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament . . . seeing that one God is the author of both." It would matter little even if it were proved beyond doubt that, by the time of Trent, the "Deus Auctor" had entirely lost its anti-Manichsean meaning. The important point is that the words of Trent, whether taken by themselves or in connexion with the earlier expressions of belief which I have quoted, furnish no argument for the doctrine of literary authorship; and that it does not appear that there prevailed among Bible students of the day a belief so strong in the Divine literary authorship, that when the Church spoke on the subject it was to be presumed she spoke according to such belief, though her language gives no hint of the fact.

But what says Vatican? It tells us that the Church holds the books of the Old and New Testaments as sacred and canonical, "not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author."

Here the issue is narrowed down, and what in the decree pro Jacobitis, and in the Tridentine decree de canonicis Scripturis, holds only a subordinate place, is made the direct matter of the Council's teaching, viz., that the Canonical Scriptures have God for their author; and the reason of Divine authorship is placed in the fact of Divine inspiration. The sacred books have God for their author, because the Holy Ghost inspired their writing. One inference at least is obvious from this teaching, viz., that we can arrive at a true and full knowledge of the Divine authorship only through a true and full knowledge of Divine inspiration, and that those entirely invert the true order of investigation who, setting out with the assumption of Divine literary authorship, undertake by this means to explain the intimate nature of inspiration. They are pursuing a course directly opposite to the one suggested by the words of Vatican.

The Sacred Text As Witness Of Divine Authorship

If we turn now to the inspired works themselves to learn their answer to our query, we find ourselves in the presence of a body of literary documents covering a period of some 1600 years, and bearing upon them unmistakable marks of diversity of origin as regards time, place, and authorship. The historian, the legislator, the chronicler of contemporary events, the moralist, the poet, plain laborers and dwellers in the palaces of kings, men of rude speech and men of the most refined eloquence, — all have contributed to the production of this unique book and have left upon it the mark of their hands. We believe, however that these writers were inspired by the Holy Ghost and we wish to know whether God is author of the book in the ordinary acceptation of the word. This question is tantamount to this other: are the different styles of the sacred books truly and fully attributable to God? I take for granted of course — what I presume all admit — that every part of Scripture that has a human writer of its own, bears upon it in some degree the impress of a workmanship peculiar to itself; that, as far as we can tell from the data at our disposal, this individual feature reflects the human circumstances of the writer, and that as a consequence we have a variety of literary styles, some crude and some polished, some terse and direct, others prolix and circuitous, some free as may be from the taint of foreign speech, and governed by the laws of correct writing, others exhibiting barbarisms and solecisms, — corresponding to the environment, education, and natural temperament of the various writers. If we say God is the author of these books in the ordinary acceptation of the word, we must be prepared to accept the consequences, and to consider Him responsible for every detail of their literary work. There is no escaping this conclusion. Consistency will not permit us to describe the "principal" author as also the real literary author, and the inspired writers as authors only in an improper sense; and then when we meet with something in the inspired work that we hesitate to attribute to God, burden it on the "defective human instrument." It is not necessary to inquire how far the "human instrument" may be responsible: what is pertinent is, that if God be literary author in the true and proper sense, He at any rate, no matter who else, must be fully responsible for the entire literary work. Now I suspect few, if any, will admit that the literary styles of the various books of Scripture can properly be said to belong to the Holy Ghost. Nor am I aware that the defenders of the Divine literary authorship theory themselves refer all the elements of the literary work to the Divine author. In this they show the saving power of their good taste.

Defects in literary composition, of course, are not a moral evil, but they are recognized among men as evidence of mental limitations and imperfections in the author. So long as a human agent stands between us and God, and bears the responsibility for full literary authorship, we are not scandalized at the crudeness of his speech, though we believe the inspiration of the Holy Ghost extends to all its ramifications; but when told that our view is wrong, that the Deity himself is true and primary author of the language we have been listening to, our feelings recoil from the obvious implication. Ignorance is as repugnant to the nature of God as error; but if it be denied that an inspired writer has ever betrayed a limitation of knowledge of the subject in hand, it is not my purpose to push the opposite opinion, — and I turn to other considerations. It is enough for me that, even if it is not absolutely impossible for the Deity to use bad grammar, some more cogent argument than the necessity of supporting an uncalled-for theory of authorship will be needed to prove that He has actually done so.

All that I have hitherto urged against the Divine literary authorship goes indirectly to establish the authorship of the inspired writers; yet a direct and positive treatment of this part of the question may bring out more clearly what has so far been only implied.

To exclude the possibility of doubt as to my contention, I will say that I claim for the inspired writers an authorship as true, and real, and full, as that which we attribute to the author of the Divina Commedia, or Sartor Resartus. Christian tradition has always spoken of those men as authors of the works that have come from their pens. Paul is author of the Epistle to the Romans; Matthew is author of the first Gospel; and Isaias is author of the prophecies that bear his name. Further, in the whole range of Scripture the individual workmanship is as traceable as it is in secular productions that are-limited to the same number of topics; the feeling exhibited is, to say the least, just as deep and true as that of profane authors, the imagination as active, the convictions as strong, the activity of all the higher faculties as intense and vital. But we are reminded that they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and therefore cannot be authors in the sense I claim. Are we, then, to assume that God, when He avails Himself of man's agency robs man of his causality? I had even thought that the saint who fed the poor for love of God did an act as truly his own as the sinner who drove them from his door.

We are in great danger of proving too much, whenever, from a consideration of the wider efficacy of the principal course, we insist on a diminution of the instrument's causality. St. Thomas has in mind no particular order of causes when he says: "In omnibus causis ordinatis effectus plus dependet a causa prima quam a causa secunda; quia causa secunda non agit nisi in virtute primae causae.³

Now, it is beyond doubt that the persons whom God chose as His instruments in the production of Sacred Scripture were capable of literary authorship; nay more, I will add, were capable of all the literary authorship the entire Scripture reveals. In elucidation of what I say, I would, to begin with, refer the reader to those parts of Scripture which of themselves are freest from any suggestion of a supernatural element, the strictly historical parts, for instance, and such snatches as the last chapter of II Timothy. Could not the author of the genealogies of Paralipomenon, or of Machabees II, as far as the literary features of the work are concerned, have executed that same task, had they been so minded, without the influx of the Holy Ghost at all? And might not a humble bishop of our own day, who knew his end to be drawing near, write to a brother bishop as Paul wrote to his beloved Timothy, without being suspected of speaking beyond the power of man?

Indeed, the inspired writers must be presumed to have used, as instruments of the Holy Ghost, the same literary style, to say nothing of the knowledge, as had been theirs before their call; and I have no doubt that if we could but recover the writings which Solomon is said to have exchanged with Hiram King of Tyre, we should find ourselves confronted with literary documents substantially the same in form, and perhaps also in matter, as his "parables" in the book of Proverbs; and that nothing short of the authority of the Church could assure us that, while the latter are inspired, the former were not.⁴

That the inspired writers were capable of the literary authorship of the Bible is most obvious when illustrated by certain historical sections, the matter also of which is so clearly within the competency of man; yet it is none the less true as regards the most lofty utterances of psalmist or prophet. To say the least, far the greater part, even of the Sapiential writings, the prophecies and the psalms, not only as to literary style, but also as to matter, could have been produced by uninspired moralists and preachers; and the only point at which doubt might arise regarding man's capacity for true authorship is where we encounter revelation. But even here our doubts will soon disappear once we reflect that revelation is a means of furnishing knowledge, and that the furnishing of knowledge, whether through human agency from human sources external to the writer, or from a divine source by means of revelation, does not change his relationship, as literary author, to the work. On what ground, then, are we asked to believe that the writers of Scripture, being once inspired to do the work we have been considering, ceased to be authors in the true and proper sense? Is this in accordance with God's way of dealing with His creatures? He could have produced without any intermediary all the effects that actually proceed from secondary causes, but He has been pleased, in His goodness, to endow His creatures, according to their various grades, with the principles of native action and true causality, even though His own efficacy, as First Cause, extends to the vanishing point of all created activity. And all our Theology, all our Philosophy, all our moral understanding has it, I think, for an acknowledged principle, that God, when He takes a creature as His instrument, avails Himself of all its natural activity that can serve the end in view. That the men whom He inspired to write the Bible were capable of its literary authorship is what I have just been trying to show.

I do not think it can be validly urged against this conclusion that, because the supernatural element of inspiration comes in, therefore the human writers were no longer able to cooperate, with their full natural causality, in the production of this book. If we omit whatever it contains of revelation, the Bible is not, of its nature, a superhuman work; and, as I have already pointed out, revelation is only a way of furnishing knowledge to the writer, and does not affect his status as author. If, therefore, the sacred writers be said to be less truly authors than are secular men of letters, it must of course be owing to the nature of the Holy Ghost's action upon them. But if out of the long discussions that have gathered around the question of inspiration, any one thing has survived as commonly admitted doctrine, it is this, that the influence of the Holy Ghost upon the inspired writers is primarily by way of a moving, a stirring-up, an impelling (the motio, excitatio, and impulsio of the Theologians) to write on certain lines; "ita eos ad scribendum excitavit et movit" are the words of the Providentissimus Deus itself. This is a very different thing from depressing their natural activity. It would seem rather to be an arousing of it to its fullest capacity.

I have refrained from drawing any inferences from the term "instrument" as commonly applied to the sacred authors, because, as it is subject to different meanings, its true significance in the present connexion would need first to be learned from sources outside itself. This only will I say. Instruments differ as much from one another in the order of instrumentality as they do in the order of nature, and it were as vain to illustrate the instrumentality of man in the hands of God, by the example of a pen in the hand of a penman, as to undertake to define man's nature itself from one's knowledge of the pen. St. Thomas points out very clearly the great difference between these two classes of instruments, and as his words may reflect light on the whole question I have passed over, I will reproduce them in full. He proposes a difficulty: "Illud quod operatur per modum instrumenti non indiget habitu ad proprias operationes; quia habitus fundatur in principali agente: humana autem natura in Christo fuit sicut instrumentum divinitatis ut dicit Damasc. . . Ergo non debuit in Christo esse aliqua gratia habitualis." He answers: "Dicendum quod humanitas Christi est instrumentum divinitatis, non quidem sicut instrumentum inanimatum, quod nullo modo agit, sed solum agitur; sed tanquam instrumentum anima rationali animatum, quod ita agitur, quod etiam agit; et ideo ad convenientiam actionis oportuit eum habere gratiam habitualem." ⁵

If this one question of authorship itself could be settled, it would be a considerable advance toward a better understanding of the whole problem of inspiration: some at least of the shifting sands, that now render progress so difficult, would be removed, and a clearer view of the remaining field of investigation made possible. And it seems to me the method of inquiry most likely to serve this end is that which disturbs as little as possible the natural order of things, which treats with suspicion any view that runs counter to our natural instincts, or the practical judgment of men, and which, in a word, is founded on a faith that truth needs not the aid of strained and unnatural argument. I for one have a hope that defenders of the Bible will yet come to see that they are not called upon to occupy positions in which consistency is almost beyond the power of man, and in which they can hardly go free, in the judgment of their adversaries, from the charge of insincerity, despite their learning and their honesty. In illustration of what I mean by strained argument, or the application of principles beyond their natural limits, I will take the liberty to cite instances in two writers of our day, whose merits are so abundant that they can bear with patience any criticism of mine, even if it be adjudged well-founded.

The distinguished and venerable Comely, in showing that there is no contradiction between Sacred Scripture and the natural sciences, introduces the words of St. Thomas (quoted later in the Providentissimus Deus) relative to the way in which Moses describes the phenomena of nature, that is, ea secutus est quae sensibiliter apparent; and cites some well-known cases to which the principle is commonly applied. But then, seemingly forgetful of its limitations, he goes on: "Moyses si carnem leporis immundam dixit, 'quia ruminat et ungulas non dividit' (Leo. XI. 6), sui temporis suaeque gentis opinioni, quae ad externam solam apparentiam attendit, sese accommodavit; 'secundum opinionem populi loquitur scriptura,' dicit S. Thomas in similis difficultatis solutione."⁶

Assuming that Moses speaks of the hare known to us — and Comely does not deny that he does — and called it a ruminant, of what earthly avail is it against the charge of error, to say that, "he went by what sensibly appeared," or to add that "Scripture speaks according to the opinion of the people."

When we say the sun sets, nobody accuses us of error; but if we should say that a horse was a biped, the whole world would pronounce us mistaken, no matter what our source of information.

Another illustration of Homer's proverbial liability to nod is furnished by the author of Questions of the Day. ⁷ He is dealing with the same principle as Comely, and he applies it to what St. Matthew has to say of Herod when the daughter of Herodias asked for the head of John the Baptist. The Evangelist says, "The king was struck sad." The learned author claims that Herod was only shamming sadness, being in reality glad of the opportunity thus offered of putting the Baptist to death; yet he maintains that, in saying he "was struck sad" St. Matthew was following the "true law of history," which requires that we "set down phenomena as they exist and are observed." But who will believe that a law, which demands such application, is the "true law of history"? If a man is really sad, the true historian will describe him as sad; if he be only shamming, the true historian will state that he was only shamming. But if a historian should write that a certain man was sad while in reality he was joyful, though simulating sadness, the common sense of mankind will say the historian erred. For my own part I do not see why the Evangelist might not be taken at his word.

Perhaps even in our application of principles to the difficulties of Scripture we all might profit by the quaint wisdom of Aesop, who advises us not to grasp too much lest we should lose all.

C. A. Campbell

Halifax, N. S., Canada.

Notes

1 Praelect. Theol., Vol. II, p. 2, num. 107, et nota 2.

2 The reader will find the question I refer to as being put to the Bishop-Elect, under the heading "Examen."

3 Sum. Theol., I-II, qu. 19, a. 4.

4 Cf. Josephus, Cont. Apion. Lib. I, c. 4.

5 Sum. Theol. III, qu. 7, a. 1, ad zum.

6 Cornely, Introductio, Vol. I, p. 586, note 12.

7 Questions of the Day, by the Very Rev. Alex. MacDonald, D. D., V. G. New York, 1905.

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